LONG HAUL NORTH

There are many mantras experienced cruisers like to pass on to those less experienced. First and foremost among these is: “Never sail to a schedule.” After that comes: “Choose your weather window carefully.” Unfortunately, this past spring, my husband, Brian, and I violated both these tenets when decided to set sail from Georgia in early March to head north.

Many times in the coming days and weeks, we wished we’d listened to ourselves, but we had jobs in Annapolis to get to by early April, and the time frame was nonnegotiable. Having done several leisurely trips both north and south on the Intracoastal Waterway, we now had to think in terms of a delivery, making as many miles as we could each day and jumping out onto the open Atlantic whenever possible. Equally problematic, because it was March and not June, we were going to have to take what we were given by Mother Nature.

Of course, such a prospect might not pose too great a problem for those cruisers with larger, modern, well-heated boats. However, aboard our 1965 Pearson Invicta yawl, , comfort is not always an option. Years earlier, when we refitted for long-term cruising we made the conscious decision to keep her classic lines and not completely enclose her cockpit, in part because we planned to head for warmer climes and wanted to enjoy an open cockpit amid warm Bahamian breezes. Fortunately, before leaving Connecticut in 2014, I’d told Brian that if nothing else I wanted a heating system. At the time, he thought we’d never actually use a heater, but